Chess players - nerds?

Actually, I should have said intelligent brain, not good.

We prefer the term advanced intellectuals!

You make it sound like a bad thing...

Being a nerd is not bad, and perhaps the reason that chess players are stereotypically labeled as having "nerdy" or "geeky" personalities is the fact that people who have never played chess, and, therefore have never understood its value, are the majority of the ones who reptitiously label with the stereotype.  If a person wants to insult me because I play chess and therefore am geeky or nerdy, I can always challenge them to a friendly game and attempt the Scholar's Mate if it is their first time.  Afterwards I usually explain to them what went wrong, and their egos are deflated a good deal.

Seeing the look on an opponent's face after utilizing the Scholar's Mate with success is priceless. 

Going back to the original subject, I think that people who are obsessed with chess, have a higher tendancy to be called nerdy. If you're really good at chess, and aren't obsessed, well, cool.

I don't think I'm a nerd.  But I don't mind it if I'm called one.

BTW, what's the Scholars Mate?

Lol

 I guess it's people being typically stereotypical, I mean, they have a point don't they?

 When you walk into a professional sort of chess club...What sort of people do you see?

When you see advertisements of chess champions, or at least tournaments, what do you see?

 If we were to, dress better, get better haircuts, and make a sort of commitment that says Chess players are actually a little more than "just nerds" then maybe people might take the game less for such a nerdy game.

I personally don't regard it as nerdy. It's stimulating and entertaining. The judgment comes from pure ignorance as to the nature of the game and what its purpose is.

But no point sitting around and complaining about it! I certainly don't have a problem with this portrayal. Coz it's really about what I think it is in the end.

 Peace

(Oh and one more thing. People only call it a geeky game if they CANNOT BEAT YOU. If they can beat you, it's a "COOL" game. Something to ponder about how people inflate their own egos by downplaying the qualities of their opponent. Muhammad Ali was a master of this in his boxing days. OUT)

A nerd is someone who doesn't party much.

 The word orignially came from spelling "drunk" backwards (a "drunk" was someone who partied a lot and someone who didn't was the opposite), and has evolved to become "nerd". It was used in colleges and just caught on. 

I can't speak for everyone, but I'd say the vast majority of chess players are nerds. I certainly am. There's some activities that are simply nerdy. Reading obscure books in your free time? Nerdy. Running Linux on your computer? Nerdy. Going to graduate school in the sciences? Nerdy as hell. Chess is one of those activities. Sorry, but it is. You know it is.

 To those of you who do not know:

 These activities are called nerdy because there are those who perceive them so.  Does it really matter what your peers perception of your hobbies and enjoyments in life is?

 Thanks.

 Happy to help.

 Don't get me wrong. I don't really care if anyone thinks I'm a nerd or whatever. I'll freely admit I'm a nerd, I don't really it's a bad thing. But if these activities aren't nerdy, then what is?

 My point of reasoning is that if you do not care if anyone calls you a nerd, why should you succumb to somebody's perception of an activity or mode of thought if the implied connotation does not matter to you?

Nerdity is a matter of perception. 

Because words have definitions? If you say that nerdity is completely perception, then aren't we literally talking about nothing?

 edit: Sorry, I don't mean to sound harsh. I just think there has to be some objectivity as to what a nerd is, or else everything we're talking about is meaningless.